Hello neighborsI can't say I rightfully enjoyed the meeting last night, but it was certainly clarifying. Even though I wholly embarrassed myself in that final swing around the circle by continuing to blubber on ineffectively about what I consider the no brainer potential of a comprehensive and interactive web site to what I felt was an otherwise preoccupied audience, I was pleased to note that despite the tendency of nearly every one of us in attendance to speak repeatedly from our own narrow mantra for what we think ails us as a collective in crisis, I did learn something about the general sense of alienation that the CSI management issue is for some owners in the building with regards to what is considered wasteful spending.

That issue of wasteful spending caught me by surprise, and I guess it shouldn't have, being already privy to the "thrift-wise" and "self-serving" spirits that stimulate most of us. But I was impressed that everyone did make several good points, and that there were enough strong reassuring personalities to help check others who unfortunately exchange the realm of idea for the personal attack far too easily to suit the common good.

The luxury condominium thrust versus the cost-conscious community angst dichotomy could very well sum up the problem that I had seen simply as more parliamentarian neglect on the part of the Board as regards to their simply pushing through spending projects that appeal to genuine capital improvement considerations while ignoring the possible hardships that these decisions, especially when coming in rather rapid succession of each other, may place on others given a conceivable variance in financial circumstances among the ownership.

Again I appeal to the Associations' governing documents. An educated owner is also informed by a general consensus found in the larger body of association institute literature as well as the courts and applicable case law of how these governing documents are mandated as the first, usually final, and nearly always, most persuasive tool we have in clearly recognizing and reasonably honoring the fiduciary trust and incumbent responsibilities a board of directors is elected to discharge for the association as a whole.

Consensus building, that is to say, the obligatory pro-active lobbying of the association membership in rousing necessary support for any large spending project long before before the mad rush to levy a special assessment and hire a contractor, to this particular owner, would seem to be the prime directive of any Board of Directors. I would like to think that this consensus building initiative is why the operations committee, among others, has been formed. I applaud the good faith. Now let's just do the work. With all due respect to our appointed leaders, both at the committee and board level, this consensus building initiative is clearly what is meant when volunteers are called to serve their community.

So we do have some tough issues to resolve since, while our building may simply be a single grandiose house in Jean Masson's words, the legal pitfalls and liabilities of 93 or so heads of household sparring over choices great and small, is hardly the same entity and cannot warrant precisely the same modus operandi as a single large structure serving a single Lord of the Manor, who finances all, instructs his dominion in every detail, and demands trust and obedience with no questions asked.

If the operations committee needs a launching point, and I would agree that it does, I humbly suggest, a careful read of these governing documents by every single person who would claim a seat on this committee, whatever our individual pet peeve or talent.

But I will be organizing my thoughts more concisely in the coming days and have challenged myself to publish these for the Board of Directors and interested members of the Association at large at the January 19 Board meeting.

Some of you may experience some difficulty in accessing the 4707 web site this morning as I move the site over to its own domain:

http://www.4707.org

and kill the old location. Registered on Sunday, world wide propagation of the new domain name should be completed by this afternoon. Conflicting password realms and broken databases caused by the move will take me a short while to rectify. Once the site is again fully in place, the original User ID and password will again be operative. Please note that the site is a work-in-progress and is not sanctioned by the Board of Directors (not that we should not seek it), is hardly fleshed out at all, and is being compiled at the full expense and energies of this unit owner as a labor of love and a project of peace given my own needs to communicate clearly in a forum that provides, however briefly this technology has been among us, just such an historical precedent.

Given certain resistance from one or more officers on the Board, I am also preparing in tandem my arguments calling for the Board to acquiesce to a laissez faire stance concerning this web initiative as it relates to free speech and freedom of assembly issues in order to ease my own anxieties about continuing the work. My recent research of precedent within similar community bodies and case law has thus far revealed nothing to deter us from consolidating and assimilating the body of information we have available to us as owners, but rather the evidence is quite convincingly, favorable. But of course, the body politik will always have the last say. Lack of participation during this heated crisis of commitment by the same concerned ownership the site seeks to serve will effectively render this particular skirmish moot, and not worthy of the Board's condemnation, unless personalities again rule over common sense with the iron mask of misplaced power. Meanwhile, we have our occasional meetings.

Shouting matches stretched weeks and months apart where the spectacle of one's own voice is soon mere ineffective vapor is not my cup of tea. I tremble at the prospect of another one of these round-tables that end rather suddenly with little else to show for it but another date and time for a scarlet reunion. And while I put every trust in our chair Bill Tilghman to effectively parse last night's discussion and present us with yet another laundry list of things to shoot for in some vague future, I request that he and others please feel free to pass this note along to any one else in the 4707 community you feel may benefit. Open communications is my aim despite the quarrels of human nature.

Internet communication is not everyone's first choice in aiming to communicate clearly many rather complex issues, complex if for no other reason than that of an individual being uninformed often as to the conflicting approaches to any solution of a problem already on the table. But then again, hemming and hawing over the same tired diversionary topics is a big turn-off for others as well. And there are tried and true ways to record and codify the wealth of information each owner can contribute to this or any discussion.

In closing, I apologize for what may appear to some readers as linguistic grandstanding in an age of quick soundbytes and spectacular noisemakers on the draw, but as last night's debacle showed me once again, I am decidedly less confident in trying to orally plead a case (especially my own case) when I sense an uphill battle than I am in my own ability to articulate more clearly and more comprehensively via the written word.

Nevertheless, I will continue to contribute to any or all calls to action whenever and wherever I believe I can be most effective to the greater good because I was INDEED ENCOURAGED by the insightful quality of most of the commentary last night.

To recap a few observations I heard from Julie and Lisa and Rachel last night, I too cherish the charming elegance of this old building and yearn for a more comprehensive community spirit, but I also know that after hearing the description of how dreadful an environs (perhaps with some exaggeration) it used to be, it is absolutely silly to surmise that it became such a lovely and alluring abode overnight by always thrusting a tightly clenched fist into the air, refusing to spend a nickel in advance of property values and simple maintenance.

So we do have some tough issues to resolve since, while our building may simply be a single grandiose house in Jean Masson's words, the legal pitfalls and liabilities of 93 or so heads of household sparring over choices great and small, is hardly the same entity and cannot warrant precisely the same modus operandi as a single large structure serving a single Lord of the Manor, who finances all, instructs his dominion in every detail, and demands trust and obedience with no questions asked. Again, trust is manifestly earned, not a perk to be cavalierly presumed by anyone or any smaller group within the larger body honored by the guiding principle ofgoverning by the consent of the governed.

But finally, let it be said there is little if anything unique about the 4707 Connecticut Avenue Condominium Association, by nature or by nurture. Thus, neither our elected body nor the firms or personnel we hire have any special exemption to go their own way, except as prepared by our own governing documents. We have appropriate guidelines we must abide. It is not mere hyperbole to suggest we ignore them at the peril of our own collective peace of mind. Last night we were offered a reminder of what always happens when the cult of personality dominates, rather than heeding the domination by community law. As good measure, we must rediscover the true path we inherit from our governing documents. Until that day, chaos will plague all of our houses, or at least those who dare involve themselves...

And not everybody will.

In closing, I apologize for what may appear to some readers as linguistic grandstanding in an age of quick soundbytes and spectacular noisemakers on the draw, but as last night's debacle showed me once again, I am decidedly less confident in trying to orally plead a case (especially my own case) when I sense an uphill battle than I am in my own ability to articulate more clearly and more comprehensively via the written word. I hope this note suffices as my sincere contribution to the discussion without harming this confidence, or that of others who feel more comfortable expressing themselves in other considerate and neighborly ways.

My interview with Tim Peyton. This was a written exchange conducted over a popular messaging protocol, so the push and pull slingshot of spontaneity was very much in play. The utilitarian nature of the interview escapes me as of this writing. It was for some school project, or publication, but I forget, or never really focussed on the trigger in the first place. I do recall it was a referral from Crash, some I presume Peyton is a university student from a school in Illinois.

TP: Gabrielwell here I am back in the "lovely" midwest after a nice visit to my hometown of Seattle. It was nice to get a little culture: good food, good drink, good smoke. I've got just a few questions for you regarding Scenewash as well as some other issues. Do you think the Internet is a good tool for building communities of individuals united by shared sensibilities?

GT: On a limited basis, the Internet is the absolute tool for building such communities for select individuals seeking something more than the corner bar chit chat & barf or whatever issue-bonding totems other established unity pairings have offered them within the realm of their own specific walk, for those who still feel themselves cut off from the chain reactions of encouraging social valences (for indecipherable reasons) beyond the spitting fires of definitive psychologies.

These often impenetrable or conflictive reasons of individual discontent at the initial stage of community-building, controlled or open, great or small, positive or negative, while seemingly of great importance to social philosophers and activists of various stripe, are meaningless to the aspiring, desperate, or even casual seekers of community.

This Internet valence-building tool, however, is somewhat limited by its virtuality which can mask much of the authentic with imposture and meaningless word-baiting albeit no more so than the swag postures of professional and intellectual cons in the other public arenas, while the Internet tool is strengthened exponentially by its outreach capabilities which stretch far beyond other contemporary venues in both its ease of immediacy and the sheer numbers possible in reaching others who commiserate at a certain level of communication a shared collective of sensibilities.

Several obvious downsides exist however, including the growing domination of the machine intercessor usurping the authentic life of human interplay and the increasingly threatening appearances of Big Brother into the bit sniffing business.

TP: What's your cocktail of choice?

GT: I'm sorry, but could you rephrase the question? Just joking. To respond [to your question] in a completely different manner, I'd answer: the bird in the hand. I try, and mostly succeed in avoiding the ridiculousness of the Alcohol Wars.

TP: Do Scenewash members regularly communicate with each other via the SWORG list? What kind of issues do they discuss?

The universal resides inside us, like the kingdom of god, not some external force or set of rules handed down from a mountaintop or ivory tower. The external is the particular, the specific orbits of our lives, the intruder upon the universal, the crusted world and its mantle of beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, attraction and repulsion. The universal is non-changing. The universal is the life-force no one can describe without resorting to particulars, externals. The SWORGsters are considering this problem.

GT-: Yes, since the SWORG SWILL list was founded in November of 1998, most of its charter members have corresponded regularly in great volume of thoughful insight and documentation. There's no hiding the fact that splitting hairs in philosophical posture is the purpose of the SWILL. Issues? We launched with no native foundation, allowing our issues to greet us like spring pollen. But I coined a phrase in a rather casual tossway that struck a chord with the others. The word was GEOSIFT. Since then, all talk is filtered through this concept, which I frankly admit still has not been adequately, or should I say, succinctly defined. But we tackle topics that range from the alpha to the omega leaving no stone unturned as we are pretentious enough to publically suggest we are seeking to map out a unified field theory of human existence in the global sphere. Each of our members are knitted with a different cloth of experience and aptitude although there are binding notions which help to provide us a common language in this Age of Babel we find ourselves swilling to define. Copping to the point, we use the best, we use the rest. We believe that many answers to the human condition might be found in a comparative study of the social with the geological. We beg, borrow, and steal any idea with which we might fashion a better truth than that old truck our grandfathers drove home. Namedropping is as bogus as reinactment ploys, but who can avoid either? We both love that what we can scavenge and loathe that which we find repugnant and false in the Situationist theories. The Christian theories. The Marxist theories. The pop culture chaos. The mythos and the concrete. We have yet to explore the sensual topics to any degree, fostering notions of geosophy at present which will offer us the tools of this projected geosift-in-progress, that is to say, the Scenewash Project, an often rude but progressive stare into the stuffy battleground where the arts and politics beat each other's brains out as the rest of us remain none the wiser but all the more insecure and otherwise cyncical to the core. All is flux. Nothing is static, not even the past, if we subscribe to all the rantings of false histories and recouperated lives that plague the pumping heart today. But we human entities are framed in both time and space despite postulates which tease us into believing otherwise. Our time and space activities have been accelerated, but we remain fixed in both. But then again, the impossible today is possible tomorrow. Yesterday proves nothing but today under dissimilar circumstances. We as individuals ALREADY sift through the anthro-rubble and the socio-fortresses of the past looking for and clinging to a haphazard matrix of clues with which to buttress our present and our future, but we suffocate in the end because we had embraced collective lies and half-truths, parables of stretching possibilities, but learning nothing of certitude. This in effect sheds light on the chasm between chaos and order. Therein lies the proper problem I think we seek to address. The SWORG theorists seek merely to quantify and qualify this natural intuition and its pitfalls, and in doing so, exert a certain amount of energy in building better more feasible tools with which to sort out of the wheat from the chaff, the eternal sift so to speak. This aim is not unique among philosophers, but we are, as noted, first and foremost, among the best minds of our generation, naked, starving, hysterical. . . locked into the times and the spaces of that nebulous generation, and therefore must work within the ranges of our own particulars with one eye on the universal and another on our own orbits, and thus be challenged by the historical aim of presenting a unique generational viewpoint which in turn will wither away as another generation is born and must therefore react positively to the world they have inherited. Let me say I have always, since my first hearing of the word in its traditional negative connotation, considered myself to be a reactionary, and see the term as the only possible grounding from which a human being can successfully operate. The universal in inside us, like the kingdom of god, not some external force or set of rules handed down from a mountaintop or ivory tower. The external is the particular, the specific orbits of our lives, the intruder upon the universal, the crusted world and its mantle of beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, attraction and repulsion. The universal is non-changing. The universal is the life-force no one can describe without resorting to particulars, externals. The SWORGsters are considering this problem. It's more than a game of semantics. It a war of attrition that no one across the ranks seems to be is winning, but why?

TP: If Jesus Christ and Superman got in a fight, who would win?

GT: You'd have to qualify a perspective in order to even begin to suit up for a phat conclusion with that question, bud. When would this fight take place? Is this JC the lion, or JC the lamb, suited up as son of a loving god or stomping forth as the bejeweled son of an avenging god? Would Clark Kent grow his hair long, get funky, acquire the powers of Samson and knock that leonine JC's jawbone fat ass silly on the pretense that JC is out to do his beloved skyscraped city great harm with plagues and pestilences? The possibilities are hilariously rich. The Nazerene is said to have conquered the world by virtue of passivity and laissez faire. Did he win, or did he lose when he was hung out to dry, naked with anguish on his godforsaken lips? Clark Kent was a man of dazzling uniform with a well-publicized vulnerability to a rather easily obtainable element. Was the man in red, white, and blue dueling for dollars in Saigon when it fell, doped up with chemical nemesis, and simply useless to the cause? Did Superman like America finally lose one?

Unfortunately for those interested in a truly sifted response to your question, I must be one of the few non-elites of my generation who has never read a Superman comic nor have I seen any of the blockbuster movies which plagued the late 1970s and early Eighties, I think it was. Sure, I've caught snatches and scenes of the Superman mythos during dud moments of my mind. But frankly, I'm too fuzzy on the storylines and arch-rivals to articulate more clearly any further response, although I'd hazard a guess that it'd end in a draw and we'd be stuck with another thousand years of the same old same old. After all, one is a tarrying old buzzard, and the other's a busybody reporter and everyone knows what lazy leeches they are.

TP: What theories and practices have come out of Scenewash?

GT-: As mentioned earlier, the Geosift is the most prominent theory. As for practices, I had originally hoped that our group would immediately begin publishing online, fleshing out the broadband infrastructive I had already worked into place but so far little has evolved to the point where the sifts of the others have been added to the site. The group, made cohesive with the list, is still uncertain of the maturity of their own individual offerings, and therefore like JC tarries in the name of perfection of timing, or something like that. My own ambition is to tackle as many uber topics as possible, researching and publishing generalized mainstream opinions, and then tackling each of them with a scalpel and a sifting net in order to get at the true root and geneaology of these chunk issues of the day, whether junk or gem. It's an ambitious project, but one in which I have been collecting data in the form of clippings and other media for several decades now. I will be 44 in September, the old man of the crew I think. But while the web is a perfect venue for me, I am but one lone worker with the standard obligations to wife and hearth eating into my energies and inertia. The SWORG group however has raised my expectations for the Project. In time I suppose we will grow beyond the current stasis. Several of us are madly finishing up school. Jobs and other paraphenalia of modern life soak up much of the others' time. So yes, like my wife repeatedly reminds me, I must practice patience despite my insistence that I am dying from a lifetime gluttony of patience. From the website in the Rhesus section you can discover that our group is scattered across the globe - Nottingham, Sidney, Austin, San Francisco, Bowling Green, and Washington DC. We are a closed group, but open to folks who understand the loopholes.

TP: Do you have anything that you would like to say to the powers that be in the world of academia?

GT-: Yeah. They can talk about me plenty when I'm gone...but that's a theft from Mighty Quinn the Eskimo, so no, I really wouldn't care to hazard the traps of today's academia. All these religious icons and philosophersof the ages have eschewed the petty polemics of academia while siding up to the poor and outcast souls, but immediately threaten to cast them into the hellfire if they don't shape up. Western philosophers ad infinitum have all tried to speak FOR the common man, the man in the street. Well, why don't they just get out of the damned way, and let the man on the street speak for himself? I am that man. But as soon as this man begins to speak, the professionals, even among the self-schooled, immediately rush in to dominate and thwart this man of the street, suggesting that the common perspective just isn't informed, that his mind has been mismanaged with great skill, and only HE, THE TRUE SPOKEMAN FOR THE COMMON MAN has the key to unleash the new possibilities awaiting him after he throws off the shackles of teh enemy of the day. This so-called leader among the comman man also immediately piles high his particular lists of required reading, complete with special languages and codes to indicate status and true consciousness. Well. What can I say? Don't follow leaders.

TP: That's about it for now. Gotta turn in for the evening. Thanks for your time, and I'll catch you on the flip side.

Sorry to hear about your recent laptop troubles, but trust your replacement box serves you long and well. And congratulations for finally "getting wired" in this era when, "if you ain't wired, you don't know jack..."

I am writing to follow-up on the web site idea you had concerning a client or potential client of yours. You mentioned to Sue something along the lines of a Kentucky Beauty Queen perhaps desiring a personal site to chart her activities and offer her fans and contacts a place to gather and send information. I think that's a very obvious idea that should certainly be exploited now as opposed to later. After all, media coverage is the key to name recognition, and the web is a vital component in the media package of a public personality. I would be honored to set up, design, and maintain such a site.

Sue said you were inquiring about the costs of such a project. Well, of course like anything else on this planet, you tend to get what you pay for, and on the Internet there's the curbside approach or the sky's the limit approach. Our online rate card can be found here.

If you want a ballpark figure to help you nail this thing down, I'd say that anywhere between $500 and $2000 should buy the Kentuckian a fair to decent web presence. I'd like the opportunity to discuss this further with you at your earliest convenience. Now that you're wired, hey, I'm right down the hall!

Thanks for the note. I think this Internet thing will be an eternal debate or at least until the system crashes...Kara Swisher

Date: Thursday, June 13, 1996 4:40PM

Just had to weigh in on the negative, Rich. That WAPO article of yours got recycled with the rest of the throwaway Sunday leftovers, but I DID scissor and file that Swisher & Schwartz rebuttal as it turns out, so I guess we know into which campfire I stick my baliwick, yet it is also true that when I am in a fresh social situation I usually get around to asking a few talking heads if they relish or whatthe Internet, E-mail, and the whole ball of waxand should they not reply rather sheepishly in the negative while stumbling toward a few words about needing to step up to the plate soon.

I immediately jump in to announce its insignificance for any number of people for any number of reasons, but that's because I think it's a genuine good thing and here to stay unless the whole system crashes in Armageddon or some sour apple like that. It may or may not always be a big money thing, but then doesn't everything eventually lead to that? Take healthcare for instance. Or rock-n-roll.

Space, just got back into DC ourselves after a quick whirl of that peachie keen homestate of Georgia. I was knocked out and loaded after 48 hours of no sleep when I arrived which, of course, immediately led to fights with Sue & my Mother the first hour. Another 12 hours and I was nearly falling down punch drunk (the metaphor, not the liquid) but still staggering around as everybody did the Christmas thing two days early, and all I wanted was a place to crash. Spent some quality time with sister & her family. Her husband's a merchant marine. Oh yeah, you might recall that from my descriptions during last summer's tragedy. Clyde finally has that damned magazine job which lasted three dog nights and nine lives of a cat, and I still don't think it'll ever go to press in its current form because he still thinks he can swashbuckle into a printer and bypass the service bureau niche (of course saving him bucks!) Not a chance, but he has never gained sight of the four-color process and the technology shifts going on in the fieeeeeeld. After I thumbed thru the job with him, we hardly spoke again that trip, although he seemed genuinely thrilled with the layout. Glad that mess is behind me....

Hardworking breadwinner comes home from the office night after night, plops down in front of the television set, and pops open a beer (or pours self a series of wine anesthesizers), and is pretty much dozing cold to any touch or conversation the frustrated homemaker tries to initiate. Years later trouble brews.

Meanwhile, glad to be back home, and web-constructing, ah, my newfound firstlove. Sue and I are walking on eggshells, or rather, she is. I've threatened to leave her if I can't wake her up from her sexual slumber (empty ornery threats). My desires run manifest, but I have sublimated them far too long I say to myself, and figure the time is at hand to force a change. She says she realizes her lack of vitality, and wants to meet me in the garden of bliss, but I can tell this is going to be a long haul. Marriage sucks in this department. Otherwise I'm all for partnerships in rhyme, crime, and drinks with a splash of lime. But the sex broke down for us ages ago. I know I'm no great looker, hardly a provider right now, and nobody worth their salt & saliva will sympathize with me when I try to shift some of that blame onto the beautiful hardworking lady of the house, but isn't there a stereotype that fits in here? Hardworking breadwinner comes home from the office night after night, plops down in front of the television set, and pops open a beer (or pours self a series of wine anesthesizers), and is pretty much dozing cold to any touch or conversation the frustrated homemaker tries to initiate. Years later trouble brews. That's the Sue & Gabriel story, roles reversed, although she's always been a good listener, simply not much of a bed warmer.

His mom and pop married AND divorced each other THREE times, after growing up in the same household as step-brother and sister, my grandpa being ten years the senior of my granny. Eeeek! Just want you to know with whom you've been swapping goofs at baseball games & the Internet, dude.

Oh well, don't mean to whine on your virtual shoulder, but I figured I should clear the air somewhat after those few cryptic remarks I made a couple of weeks ago I guess it's been since we last mailed. Glad you had a pleasant holiday. Mine wasn't all bad. Spent some quality time with another brother in Dalton, just a few miles south of Chattanooga in the Tennessee ridge. He finally seems to have found a hole in the world where he can function more or less obedient to his crazy-eyed whims, a fearless mountainman, hours away from the dark shadows of family competition. The next trial for him will be when he gets his driver's license back. He's already spent over eighteen months in the slammer in two different stints on DUI charges. Chaz is a decent guy, actually very decent, but he's a small guy (5'4" 135 lbs.) wrestling with the dual giants of massive ego and low self-esteem fueled by family resentment and fantasy-driven psychosis. But he seems well-placed right now, and I'm happy for him.

Aside from Clyde (the successful business tycoon) & Laurie Ann (the most well-adjusted sibling among us) however, the rest of us seem to be in a state of perpetual psychological erosion. It's an inherited trait from my mother's side, although one would be hard pressed to deny that my dad's farmbilly background ain't fraught with a special kind of weirdness as well. His mom and pop married AND divorced each other THREE times, after growing up in the same household as step-brother and sister, my grandpa being ten years the senior of my granny. Eeeek! Just want you to know with whom you've been swapping goofs at baseball games & the Internet, dude.

Anywaze, lemme go. Gotta brush my teeth or something.

Fats,

"...free from the Clyde-induced depression of Ninety-five! But swiftly working on a mutated variety, to date unnamed."

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